There are things that make some people uncomfortable for no rational reason, even though they don’t harm them in any way. For some, it’s our cultural or religious background that leads to their discomfort. For others, media figures have told them that something is a problem that really isn’t. There are also all sorts of irrational phobias people my have.
In today’s example, there’s the political cartoon above that lacks any awareness of the law and the realities of everyday life.
For some people, the mere sight of a gun, or the knowledge that there’s one being concealed near them, is enough to drive them to distraction. Sure, a firearm can do great harm in the wrong hands, but we have to look at context.
Is the gun hanging on a cop’s belt, or in the hands of someone who’s demanding your wallet and phone? Is the gun in the holster of a normal person who’s exercising their right to keep and bear arms, or is it in the hands of someone threatening to hurt people?
Rational people look at these contextual clues and decide whether or not to fear a gun because ultimately it isn’t the gun that should be feared, it’s the person who possesses it.
Sadly, many of the the people who can’t (or refuse to) make that kind of distinction produce cartoons like the one above to try to spread and normalize their own irrational fears. While Tennessee’s new law is only going to arm some teachers in some places with concealed handguns, it’s still true that your kid’s teacher is extremely unlikely to harm anyone, even if they did actually have an AR-15 in hand.
The cartoon, however, wants to send the message that to fear an armed teacher is a perfectly rational response…that if you’re a student or parent, you’d be right to be horrified by the presence of such a ghastly tool of slaughter and mayhem. The fact that more than 20 states now allow armed teachers and that no school where teachers are armed has ever been attacked never seems to enter the conversation.
The same left-leaning people who push such irrational fears want to have it both ways, though. We need to constantly accommodate their hoplophobia, but if people they approve of do anything that makes others feel uncomfortable, they’re wrong to disagree with it. Their discomfort is afforded extreme privilege and deference, but the discomforts they disagree with should not only be ignored but ridiculed to the greatest extent possible.
At the same time, there are hypocrites like this on all sides. For some less enlightened people, guns should be tolerated and celebrated, but the gay couple down the street minding their own business deserves to be harassed, smeared as pedophiles, or worse. These lunatics who can’t live and let live empower other lunatics who can’t coexist with Christians or Jews, and everyone gets to use the hypocrites on the opposite side of the ideological divide as an excuse for their equally abhorrent behavior.
In other words, these emotionally and socially stunted people prop each other up while hating the other. It’s a sick cycle that endangers everyone’s rights.
At the end of the day, there’s really only one solution to all of this: the realization that individual rights outweigh anyone’s desire for emotional comfort. Guns and armed self-defense are a constitutional right. No one has the right to take someone’s guns away because they feel “uncomfortable.” The same is true for freedom of association, religion, expression, and more. No one has any right to tell other people that they can’t exercise their rights just because others find it bothersome.
Of course, if someone is actually harming other people, that goes out the window. Society doesn’t have to tolerate criminals misusing guns, sexual predators, libel or slander, or child abuse by clergy. Rights do have limits, but that limit isn’t where other people’s comfort zones begin.
The only real limit should be drawn where there’s a victim suffering actual harm from the abuse or misuse of a right. The sooner we get more people to see where that limit really lies, the better.
11 Responses
“No one has the right to take someone’s guns away because they feel “uncomfortable.”
As has been said, Our rights don’t end where their feelings begin.
“At the same time, there are hypocrites like this on all sides. For some less enlightened people, guns should be tolerated and celebrated, but the gay couple down the street minding their own business deserves to be harassed, smeared as pedophiles, or worse”
Oh fer Chrissake. The alphabet mafia is one of the slimy tendrils of the monster called communism. The others are climate change, multiculturalism, and feminism. The purpose of this monster is to destroy civilization for the sake of power. Gay people never just “mind their own business.” They intrude on the public domain and demand others not only tolerate, but celebrate their mental illness. Nothing less than absolute worship of their orientation will do. Nothing less than the grooming of all children in public schools will do, despite the parents of those children not wanting them to be groomed. Nothing less than the total re-orientation of society’s goals toward those of the alphabet mafia will do. If you disagree with this agenda, you are smeared as a homophobe and can lose your living.
You are not being oppressed. Go live in Russia, or in countries in Africa. Then you will learn about oppression. So STFU.
Tell everyone you’re homophobic without telling everyone you’re homophobic.
I’ve known many gay people who do “mind their own business” – including a roommate in college. I bet many own businesses and are fond of capitalism and are deeply religious.
Yes, there are some who attempt to groom and use their “protected” status as a shield – and those acts should be condemned. Yes, some have mental health issues – many of which perhaps stem from “society” making overly broad, blanket statements and ostracizing them.
She would vote for her identity group over your gun rights any day of the week.
Do you have a daughter? A niece?? What do you think of Biden’s revision to Title IX??
Generally, all of us have an “individual priority” for which they will vote. No candidate is “perfect”. There are several prominent gay gun rights groups out there (Pink Pistols). Who am I to tell them who to vote for?
I have both a daughter and a niece. I think Biden’s revision to Title IX sucks and is very dangerous / misguided and represents a significant step back for Women’s Rights.
I also think labeling all those who are gay as:
1. Communistic
2. Having Mental Health Issues
is stupid, naive and sophomoric (at the individual level, ie, directly applied to you) while being dangerous and misguided at the social level.
You are falling into the exact “divisiveness” that the politicians (in general) want [gays vs non-gays; white vs black; hispanics vs non-hispanics; jews vs muslims; etc]. It is through divisiveness that governments will continue to have power because The People will be fragmented.
Communists push homosexuality, and other “social justice” B.S., to cause the very conflict in society you despise. No settlement is enough. If these groups get what they want, they move the goalposts and demand more. “Tolerance” was not enough. “Acceptance” was not enough. “Gay marriage” was not enough. The next frontier is the erasure of all physical sex differences. Once that is granted (and it will be), the ultimate prize for them is the total erasure of the age of consent. This final goal was admitted by the father of NAMBLA (the North American Man Boy Love Association), Alan Ginsberg. It has been their admitted goal since the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Where do we draw the line?? You, with the Wisdom of Solomon, can truly tell me.
Not all gays, or feminists, or environmentalists, are communists, but those that aren’t are useful idiots for communists. And when the communists get what they want, which is total power, the first people they put against the wall are the useful idiots, followed swiftly by the rest of us who actually resisted. Losing her guns will be the LEAST of the author’s worries.
Yes. We are at that point. The next few years will determine the continued existence or fall of our civilization.
“…but the gay couple down the street minding their own business deserves to be harassed…”
Where exactly is that a real problem in the US? I live in the Bible Belt South, and it isn’t a problem here. Like you said there will always be loud voices freaking out about any given topic. Where is the mob coming after the “gay couple down the street minding their own business?” Now do (trying their best to stay) legal gun owners. One of these is not like the other. Let’s not pretend like push back against intentionally weaponized “lgbt” culture is the same thing as ignorant libs jumping because they were told to jump. Show me the non-gun mega corps that celebrate the 2A. Now do the mega corps celebrating the various “lgbt” special days/weeks/months. Spoiler alert: one is not like the other. Who is promoted and celebrated by our culture, and who is demonized?
I recently stopped visiting TTAG after almost 10 years of visiting multiple times daily (mostly lurking). The unbearable preaching from this author and TTAG’s willingness to host it for the clicks was a big reason I left. Guess I need to keep looking…
I read TTAG and SNW for the content of the articles and points made in the comments.
My desire is to stay abreast of current issues relative to POTG.
I do not let petty things, that I have no control over, stop me from staying up to date of current POTG issues.
I would like to read about gun related topics without the author using guns as an “in” to preach their gospel to an audience they wouldn’t otherwise reach. There is absolutely no justification for the consistently off-topic rants that this author includes in virtually every article.
Whining just to Whine.